Why can’t you just be like the other children? Late diagnosed or self diagnosed adults, Can we forgive parents?

I'm sorry I missed this when you posted and have only just seen it! I find the comments system here is not perfect. I hope you are still on this site.

I'm sorry, but I don't know what to say. I don't really know anything about drugs or gangs. I think putting pressure on an adult child is probably going to be counter-productive, autistic or otherwise. If he doesn't accept his diagnosis, you can't make him. Maybe you could try to talk to him about why he doesn't accept his diagnosis? It sounds like you love him and are doing what you can for him. I became very depressed and withdrawn after I left university. In retrospect, I was probably suffering burnout, which may be affecting your son too. I did come out of that eventually, but I think I had to be ready to do so myself.

Much of this matches my own childhood in Rural Ireland in the 1970’s as my Mum was in the same situations as a result of being sent to nuns after grandad abandoned the family home where traditional Irish Catholic Social teaching was used to mete out abuse as part of Irish law - I was punished for being bullied in school by being sent to a child residential centre (state run) for 9 months and the bullying got far worse, with further punishment for the bullying, which after that as I was seen as the problem for having invited and attracted the bullying - my Dad’s side of the family were strong advocates of severe corporal punishment to “correct” my childhood behaviour and still advocate ultra strict discipline to this day 

this is really sad and i feel angry that anyone allowed your father to go near you after that horrendous act. teachers were the absolute pits for me too. 

i totally hear you and agree

My relationship with my dad was very distant and strained. My parents divorced when I was tiny and he had been abusive towards my mum for years. The final straw for my mum was when he threw me, a defenceless baby, across the room. I resented having to spend one day a week with him, as directed by the courts. As soon as I was old enough to have a say I put a stop to that. I never did forgive him, even when he died.

My mum was a mess because of everything she had endured. Even at a young age I could clearly see that. She cried all the time and was agoraphobic. She had suffered poor mental health for years before I was born and was hospitalised several times. Despite very likely being autistic she acquired various wrong diagnoses, including a personality disorder. Throughout her pregnancy and most of my childhood she was constantly drugged up on high doses of antidepressants and Valium.

As a result she wasn't really there for me and it was more like I was her carer. However when she was in a relationship with someone she seemed to change and that's the part I struggle to forgive. Her endless pursuit of the perfect nuclear family was actually very damaging for me. When the relationships inevitably broke down, after numerous frightening arguments, I was suddenly needed again to pick up the pieces.

I don't think my mum saw me as strange. I was an only child and she had no-one else to compare me to, so in her view I seemed normal. It was other people that didn't see me that way. I endured repeated punishments from teachers, on a daily basis, during my early years of education. I endured much teasing and bullying for being different throughout my school years.

The teachers were constantly contacting my mum telling her that something was wrong. My mum took me to the doctors repeatedly, as instructed by my teachers. However they had probably never even heard of autism and if they did thought it only affected boys. The teachers even tried to get me transferred to a special school but that failed. If things at home were bad school was worse and it's the attitudes of and punishments from the teachers I can't forgive. My mum did her best in fighting them when she could, or keeping me off school when she couldn't. We became a very insular unit, it was us against the rest of world.

This might prove unpopular and not very "love and light" but no, not always, not for everything, and sometimes not ever, and that is fine. Forgiveness is not a prerequisite to healing from generational trauma, walking away is.

I had one parent that never accepted anything I ever did or wanted that deviated from their world view and one that accepted me completely whose love didn't come with terms and conditions. And now I'm a parent I know that accepting and loving your kid unconditionally is the easiest thing in the world. So if you have pearents that punished you for being different the person you need to forgive is yourself, because it's not your fault your parents are messed up.

Hello Bassface, this seems to be a very constructive take on the challenges of non-diagnosis and the value of letting go of the past. I am sure that your Mum really appreciates your recognition of the efforts she is making. Sue

It is a good question. I think that growing up with undiagnosed autism often means that your emotional needs weren't being met. So the mental health effects can be similar to people who had neglectful parents. I think that can happen even if your family situation was pretty good, and it's worse if there were other family issues as well (e.g. frequent family conflict).

I think the majority of parents would have no idea of the effects of being constantly corrected/punished for things that you don't understand you are doing wrong. If you have older siblings, they might have been trying to bring you up 'sternly' in the same way, and not knowing why it didn't work the same. I think it's also common for emotional distress to be misunderstood, ignored or minimised, and that can grow into mental health issues that follow you around after you leave home. For example, I occasionally have major anxiety that gets triggered by a few specific childhood fears, because when I was younger my mortal terror (blank face, unable to speak) would be misunderstood as rudeness and I would be told off so then I was guilty and ashamed as well as extremely scared, and the fear would stay unresolved.

In hindsight my parents should have known (they ignored suggestions from my teachers). My counsellor said that they were probably in denial about having a 'different' kid.

At some points I have been angry about all this, but I'm not anymore. They didn't know what they were doing, and dwelling on it doesn't help anything. And, I do like some things about how I was brought up (I was allowed to by myself a lot and follow my interests). I am able to forgive my mum partly because she is making a big effort to be more emotionally supportive now.

This all sounds so incredibly sad. How awful to see your Autism as a "punishment from God". Experimentation is a normal part of discovering your sexuality. Are you really saying that neurodiversity is a condemnation? It is a physical difference in how the brain develops....which starts before you are even born and have had the opportunity to sin. 

It really DISTURBS ME to think that you might share these thoughts with vulnerable young people, who already struggle to find a sense of self-worth. I am new to this community and this thinking seems to be in stark contrast to the understanding and compassion expressed in comments from other participants.   

At age 52, I’ve come to see my Autism as being God’s Punishment for being disobedient to parents in childhood, as all parental Authority comes from God, even if my parents because of thier own issues did not know how to be parents and even if they should not have been allowed to bring a child into the world and were considered unsuitable for Marriage, where both their and both my grandparents marriages on both sides of my family were disapproved of for whatever reasons in the Catholic Ireland of the time and according to Catholic Social Teachings - had I been taught (and properly understood) my Catholic faith better in childhood, I might well have been a model child, even if I’d been taken off my parents (which I now realise I should have been) and sent to live with my grandparents family and/or sent to live with Nuns in a Convent, as my grandparents before they passed in the 1980’s remained hugely concerned at my upbringing, as thier belief was that a “harsh” childhood with ultra strict discipline results in stronger adults, which was something I never had, so I was unable to “cop myself on” and (properly) grow up, while “falling into sin” in my teenage years as an only child, in choosing the gay path in the process, which I only realised 15 years ago after I returned to my faith after I cut all ties with that lifestyle, that was never considered appropriate by anyone in my particular case, given my only child background and the situation with my parents - I only share these things on here to help others, especially young people and to avoid making the same mistakes that I made - and my lived life experiences are textbook in helping others, especially children, in our times - unlike homosexuality, despite the parallels, only Autism is mainly a genetic condition, aside from any other causes of autism like childhood vaccines, parenting, etc 

I was brought up a Roman Catholic. For me it was never a compassionate or forgiving ethos which I am now no part of. It saddens me to hear that there are still people out there who genuinely believe that you can beat things out of people. I also don't believe that people choose their sexuality. At the moment, the world generally does not welcome or value neurodiversity. Everyone should believe that they have some good in themselves and others should stop trying to make them conform to their standards or view of what is "normal". It has been very disturbing to discover that people are looking for a cure for Autism and exploring the equivalent of conversion therapy. My daughter would say the problem isn't my Autism.... it is the fact that society doesn't want me to be me. Prejudice out of ignorance is in all parts of society...... whether religion, sexual orientation, gender, race or even gay communities. 

I welcome the day when someone can walk down the street "stimming away" and no-one bats an eyelid. Real communities thrive on celebrating differences rather than condemning them.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            I                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          

Roy said:

find it very hard to forgive and forget.

I've spent a lifetime at age 78 running away from myself (see my other profile at NAS83898) . I had an older brother 9 years my senior who remained a confirmed bachelor owing to his fear of women (a mum complex) and left my parents home in NYC to resettle 3000 miles away in California.  One upmanship put me here in the UK, but I married twice over. My parents had their own issues and should never have had children. We weren't abused as children. It was just a hysterical household with a father who took a back seat owing to his own WW2 "battle fatigue" --- they use to call it.  I can forgive because they could not help their own dilemma, but I can't forget all my unhappy childhood years without parental guidance while "dragging" myself up on the friendless streets of Brooklyn.

I keep thinking that if I had been a “good Catholic” and if I had learned the faith better as taught to me by parents (if they had been better able to be parents and properly pass on the faith given thier own issues in the Catholic Ireland of the time) maybe I would have dealt with all of this better - going down the gay path in my teens in the 1980’s up until 15 years ago is something that I now realise was a big mistake and would not have happened if I had been adopted by my grandparents family on my Dad’s side, as I now realise that I needed (but never got) that ultra strict and ultra harsh upbringing to (make) me “cop myself on” as I did not get enough corporal punishment often enough at crucial points during my childhood, which would have made me a far stronger and more resilient person and ensured that I would not have gone down that gay path, which many considered totally inappropriate in my particular case as an only child, as I discovered later on in the consistent prejudice, discrimination and non-acceptance that I experienced from other gay men, even outside of the commercial gay scene and especially in the “nonprofit” part of the gay world 

I know what you mean............so many "if onlys..."  and "what ifs..."" Sue 

This si something I have thought about alot as I get older. My dad passed in 2020 and probabably had ASD as well as other undiagnosed issues. My mum passed last year and she was the only one I got to talk about ASD with. They knew no diffrent, I blame them for nothing, I probably blame myself more for not getting help in my 20's and 30's. I was not an easy chlild, I was very clingy and genrally scared of the world and being left on my own, I was an only child that didn't help. They made my life as normal as they could, I genrally did what I was told and was not disruptive. This obviously ment I learned to mask pretty much as soon as I started school, with my ADHD helping that. 

I am currently waiting for a copy of my medical records to see if there is anything in there. I was quite a sicly child and it was taked about me going to a special school for that reason. I was about 8 and massivley fought that because I thought I was 'normal'. Who knows how things may have turned out if I had gone there, we will never know.

Rob

Yes, perhaps our outlook is our making, I also have circled; ‘mental-health, teaching, and outreach; for some time. I hope that I will be able to turn it to saving more ”me’s” in the future.

Covid has taught us so many lessons and at age 52 now, I’ve always taken careful heed of my grandparents consistently correct and accurate warnings and predictions before they passed in my teenage years in Rural Ireland in the 1980’s, which inspired my eventual return to my (traditional pre-Vatican II) Catholic faith over 15 years ago - having lived 20 years in a socially deprived area of Manchester U.K. I still regard myself as an Irish Catholic patriot and in my 30 years in supermarket retailing, I have come to realise the truth of many things that many others do not see 

Hello "Battybats" - I hope that is how my daughter sees me. She has described her relationship with my husband as toxic and he will opt out saying "you are so much better at this sort of thing".

You mention not wanting to hug people..........I can recall how as a babe in arms my daughter would go stiff when others tried to touch her. I don't know why, but I used to say "a smile and a wave would be lovely, sweetpea" as people came over to say goodbye. Undiagnosed autistic, I remember dreading the call of "kiss granny goodbye". Mind you, neurodivergent or not, I have always believed that no-one should feel obligated to give affection.

Your Mum sounds like a lovely person, Sue

Wow! I have had very similar conversations with my daughter. She has told me that she just wants to go back and comfort and reassure herself as a child and give herself a big hug. I am not quite so generous and am still horrified at the extent of the bullying uncovered at the hands of my "good friends'" daughter. Ironically, she decided to train as a mental health nurse! Your message sounds very hopeful and constructive. Thank you, Sue

I like the way you think. I wish I'd had that insight a few decades ago...